(This is Part 2 of my response to the article, “God Is Unconvincing To Smart Folks,” by J. H. McKenna. For Part 1, click here.)
Points 3, 4, and 5 of Dr. McKenna’s article deal with three key characteristics of God: God’s omniscience, God’s omnibenevolence, and God’s omnipotence.
3. God as all-knowing is unconvincing
Under this heading, Dr. McKenna writes:
Does God know terror, fear, pain, indigestion, menstruation, sexual attraction, sexual climax, pregnancy? Does God know the last number? No one is all knowing. Again, a nonsensical claim.
So God really is just a slob like one of us, with all of our limitations?
(And hmm . . . more issues about God and sex . . .)
Yes, God does know all of these things, if only because God fully knows every one of us—in fact, much more fully than we know ourselves—and is fully present in every one of our experiences, whether or not we are aware of it.
We don’t need to get down into the nitty-gritty of exactly how all of these things might exist within the nature of God. We wouldn’t be able to understand most of it anyway because our minds are finite whereas God is infinite. Suffice it to say that everything in the created universe is, in one way or another, an expression of the nature of God. The things we experience don’t exist in the same form in God as they do in us. After all, our reality is limited to the physical and the spiritual, whereas God exists on the divine level of reality. But all of these things do exist in divine form in God.
However, it is also important to understand that much of what we experience, though ultimately derived from God, is a distorted version of its original version in God. We’ll get to the problem of evil in a moment, too.
Correspondences
But before we get there, here is another important concept Emanuel Swedenborg offers that makes it possible to understand these things in a clearer light: “Correspondence.”
The Latin word Swedenborg uses is correspondentia. Over the years, translators of Swedenborg who haven’t just taken the easy way out and translated it with the English cognate “correspondence” or “correspondences” have struggled mightily to find an English word that really captures Swedenborg’s meaning.
Basically, “correspondence” is the way that divine realities express or manifest themselves on the spiritual level of reality, and spiritual realities express or manifest themselves on the physical level. A “corresponding” thing at a lower level expresses on its own level the same qualities and functions that its corresponding reality at the higher level does.
One way to literally picture this is to consider a two-dimensional photograph of a three-dimensional scene. The photograph isn’t actually the original scene. It does not capture the full three-dimensional solidity and experience of the original scene. But it does provide a faithful reproduction in two-dimensions, from a particular angle and perspective, of the original three-dimensional reality.
Here is a more human example: A hug corresponds to love between two human beings. Love is a spiritual force that brings two (or more) people close to one another in heart and mind. A hug expresses that love in bodily form by bringing people physically close to one another. The hug expresses or manifests on the physical level the love between the people that exists on the emotional and spiritual level.
This can help us to understand that God does know all of these things. But God knows on a divine level of reality all of the things that we know on the spiritual and material levels of reality.
God remains connected to all of God’s creation
God is the creator and source of everything that exists. And God didn’t create the universe from nothing (ex nihilo) as traditional Christian theology holds, but out of God’s own substance. God did this by spinning out created reality from God’s own reality, and putting limits and boundaries on it. This distinguishes finite, created reality from the infinite, uncreated reality of God, making it non-God. (The universe is not pantheistic.)
And yet, God does not withdraw from what God has created. God continues to be intimately connected with everything God has created through the means of correspondences, or the relationship between divine reality and the various created levels of reality. This means that God is quite literally present in every point in time and space throughout the entire universe, from within.
That is how God is all-knowing. God remains directly connected with everything God has created, so that God is fully aware of everything that exists and takes place in the universe.
Remember, God is an infinite being, not a limited and finite one like us slobs here on earth. Knowing everything is not a problem for an infinite being. For more on this, please see: “How did God Create the Universe? Was the World Really Created in Six Days?”
4. God as all-good is unconvincing
God is all-good and yet made a world that is bloody red in tooth and claw? God is all good and made predators and prey? (A lion might love the arrangement, but the hapless gazelle and bunny rabbit do not.) God is all-good but made the talon and the fang? God is all good but made 50,000 pathogens that are trying to kill us and the animals? God is all good and made diseases? What about all the suffering of animals and humans? In human affairs, would we call a person ‘good’ who sits by as a six year old boy beats a two year old girl and her pet kitten to death? No, any good person would intervene. And yet God has allowed a near infinity of pain and suffering to exist. Either God is not all good (or not all powerful) or God does not exist: these are the only explanations for the high degree of animal and human suffering on earth. More likely, there’s no God.
No, these are not the only explanations.
As I’m sure Dr. McKenna is aware, for thousands of years theists of various perspectives have exercised their minds on the issue of God’s benevolence in the face of our experience of evil, suffering, and pain. In fact, it’s such a big, heavily discussed topic that it has its own fancy theological and philosophical term: “Theodicy.” Suffice it to say that some Very Smart Folks have come up with various ways of harmonizing God’s all-good, all-powerful nature with the reality of evil.
Obviously we don’t have time or space to recapitulate the vast literature on this subject here in this article. You can read some of the biggies at the “Theodicy” link just above. I have also written extensively on the subject here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life. For starters:
- If God is Love, Why all the Pain and Suffering?
- How does God Govern Humankind? Is God Actively Involved in our Lives?
- How can we have Faith when So Many Bad Things happen to So Many Good People? Part 1
About violence in nature, I would especially direct your attention to Part 2 of that last article, which discusses this point: “2. Violence, pain, and suffering exist in the universe because the universe was created for us.”
Short version: In order for humans to be free, and therefore actually human and capable of engaging in real relationships with one another and especially with God, God must allow an alternative to the all-good nature of God. The only possible alternative is evil.
God doesn’t actually create evil. We humans do that when we choose not to be in a good and loving relationship with God and with one another. When we do this, we twist the good that God creates into something evil. And if we didn’t have the choice and ability to do this, we would be mere robots, or would be just like the lower animals. We would not be human. And we could not possibly have eternal life, either. For that, we must have a self-aware spirit that is capable of having a conscious relationship with God.
Yes, there is terrible evil, pain, and suffering here on earth. But keep in mind that it is all temporary. The pain and suffering that we experience here on earth will come to an end. And assuming that we haven’t freely chosen a type of life that involves inflicting pain and suffering on others—which inevitably boomerangs back onto ourselves—once we move on to the spiritual world that pain and suffering will all be behind us. But we will keep the compassion, patience, and depth of character that we developed through experiencing it. As Psalm 30:5 assures us:
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
About violence in nature: That’s not evil. It’s just the way nature works. In particular, the predator-prey relationship is essential to the health of the prey species just as it is to the life of the predator species. The more we study nature, the more we realize that it is a finely calibrated system. Yes, there is suffering in nature. But most of it is mercifully short-lived. And it leads to stronger species and a stronger ecosystem overall.
Further, without the great cataclysms in which our earth formed, and which periodically changed its face in massive events such as planetary collisions and major meteor strikes, this planet would not even be capable of supporting complex life forms such as lions, gazelles, bunny rabbits, and human beings.
Besides, God didn’t create us humans to be weak and over-sensitive. God created us to develop strength—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—through facing the challenges and struggles of life. A life with no pain and suffering might provide us with an easy ride, but we would be physical and moral weaklings.
So let’s not be crybabies about nature being “red in tooth and claw,” and about not having everything handed to us on a silver platter. People who grow up in the lap of luxury with no struggles and no worries tend to grow into vapid, superficial, self-indulgent, and rather useless adults.
God has greater things in mind for us. That’s why God gives us a world in which we must struggle against terrible pain, suffering, hardship, and loss. It is through this very struggle that we develop into truly human beings.
Of course, in this brief space we can only scratch the surface of these truly huge questions. The three articles linked above dig deeper into the issue of pain and suffering in the face of God’s all-good nature.
If all you want to do is gripe and complain about the unfairness of it all, and reject God because God is SO UNFAIR!!! then I’ve got nothing for you. If you want to believe that life sucks and then you die, that’s your choice.
But if you want real answers to these questions, read the articles linked above, including the full four-part article on bad things happening to good people. If you want real answers, you’re going to have to spend real time and do the work required to get them. No excuses!
5. God as all-powerful is unconvincing
In human affairs, would we call a person ‘powerfully strong’ who sits by as a six year old boy beats a two year old girl and her pet kitten to death? No, if you are powerfully strong (and decent), you stop the boy killer. And yet the all-powerful God has allowed a near infinity of animal and human pain and suffering to exist. Either God is not all powerful (or not all good) or God does not exist: these are the only explanations for the high degree of animal and human suffering on earth. Also, to point out the contradiction of saying anyone possesses ‘all-power,’ skeptics ask: Can God make a rock so heavy that God can’t lift it? Again, ‘all-power’ is a nonsensical claim.
No, these are not the only explanations.
If Dr. McKenna has spent his career studying and lecturing on the history of religious ideas, he should know that. (Or maybe he does know just how flimsy these standard arguments of the skeptics actually are?) But most of this point is the same basic argument as was made in the previous point, which I covered just above. So we’ll move on the skeptics’ question, “Can God make a rock so heavy that God can’t lift it?”
This is a classic example of the “omnipotence paradox.” And once again, this type of paradox has been dealt with extensively by philosophers and theologians for thousands of years. For some of the major discussions of it, feel free to read the linked article.
Here is the short version from a Swedenborgian Christian perspective:
“Omnipotence,” as it applies to God, does not mean the ability to do just any old thing—even contradictory and destructive things. Rather, it means that God has the ability, without limit, to do everything that God wants to do. This flows naturally from the aforementioned all-good, or omnibenevolent, nature of God.
We must also understand that evil has no reality of its own. Its “reality” is simply a twisting, corruption, and destruction of the true, self-existent reality of God’s love, goodness, and power. Another way of saying this is that evil is merely the destruction and negation of good. In that sense, evil doesn’t actually have any power to do anything. Its nature is to undo things.
The omnipotence of God is to do things, not to undo things. If God were to oppose God’s own actions by undoing everything God does, that would not be omnipotence, but complete impotence. It would mean that God couldn’t do anything at all. As Jesus said:
Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. (Matthew 12:25)
God is not a house divided against itself.
The example of God creating a stone so heavy that God can’t lift it betrays a basic misunderstanding of the nature of omnipotence. Ditto for arguments about God creating a jail that God can’t break out of, creating a triangle whose angles don’t add up to 180 degrees, and so on. God doesn’t violate God’s own laws. That would mean violating God’s own nature and actually destroying God’s omnipotence.
Omnipotence doesn’t mean doing contradictory things. Omnipotence means having full power to accomplish definite purposes, which are God’s eternal purposes. If I sit around all day arm wrestling myself, that’s not omnipotence, no matter how big my “guns” are.
Fighting against oneself accomplishes nothing.
God doesn’t waste time creating stones too heavy to lift. God is interested in getting things done. And God’s omnipotence means that God can do everything God wants to do.
Points 6–11 deal with people’s experiences of and testimonies about God, and with divine revelation. We’ll take them up in Part 3.
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Actually, I have come across an an answer to the Omnipotence paradox that is quite clever. If we take the view that God can do anything at all, including solving paradoxes that should be impossible, then God can give Himself the ability to solve those problems.
For the sake of this idea, let’s pretend that God can take form with physical traits (body, hands, muscles, etc.). For the rock question, God can create a rock that is so heavy that He cannot lift it. However, God can THEN give Himself the ability to become more powerful than He was a moment earlier, and thus lift the rock. The same can be said about the jail. God can create a jail so secure that even He cannot break out, but He can then just give Himself the ability to break out.
This can apply to some of the other paradoxes:
*God could create a being even greater than Himself, but could then give Himself even more power to overcome that being and be, in the words of Pokemon, the best there ever was.
*God could create a way for Himself, an immortal being, to die, but, for obvious reasons, does not go through with it.
*God could create a pepper so spicy that He could not eat it without His tongue dissolving, but then gives Himself the ability to eat the pepper and still have an intact tongue.
Now, this idea does have two issues:
1. It assumes that God is a being who can change,evolve, or grow. Whether that is true or not is ultimately not knowable, because if God really is perfect in every single way and does not change because there is no aspect that needs improving, then this theory doesn’t work.
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2. It creates the paradox of a being of infinite power granting themselves even more infinite power, which is silly and pointless in the first place,
Overall, though, it’s the best answer I’ve come across to the omnipotence paradox.
Hi Ian,
Thanks for your thoughts.
However, in my view the whole thing is an effort to respond to a rather silly set of hypothetical questions that assume a rather silly and inaccurate understanding of what omnipotence is.
I added the silly video of the guy arm wrestling himself to give a visual representation of just how silly these so-called “omnipotence paradoxes” really are. Fighting against oneself is not omnipotence, but weakness and self-limitation. Omnipotence is about getting things done, not about creating barriers against oneself getting things done.
Basically, I think these “omnipotence paradoxes” are non-issues once you understand the real meaning of omnipotence.
I’ve really enjoyed this series, but I do wonder a bit about God violating his laws. What’s the difference between God making a rock so heavy he can’t lift it and God causing a virgin birth to take place? There does seem to be some distinction between the two, but what exactly is that distinction?
Hi Griffin,
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the series.
In answer to your question, the basic answer is that one accomplishes nothing, whereas the other accomplishes something.
God creating a rock heavier than God can lift does not accomplish any purpose, nor does it get anything useful or constructive done. It only creates a contradiction—which, as the article says, is an example of weakness, not of strength.
God causing a virgin birth to take place in the case of Jesus Christ is part of accomplishing God’s greatest purpose, which is the salvation of the human race through providing access to heaven for all who wish to enter there.
Though science doesn’t deal in purpose, God and spirit both do deal in purpose. Everything God does has a purpose, and each lesser purpose contributes to God’s greatest purpose, which is an eternal heaven from humanity. Scientists may believe in blind evolution unfolding for no purpose, according to no pattern, with no goal. But that is not how God operates. God’s power always involves God acting to accomplish specific purposes.
In terms of classical philosophy, God acts according to the sequence of “end, cause, and effect,” in which “end” is the purpose for which something is done, “cause” is the means by which something is done, and “effect” is the actual thing done. Compare the Four causes in Aristotelian thought.
A corollary is that a virgin birth does not actually violate God’s laws. We know this because there are many virgin births that occur naturally in nature. On this, see the article, “The Logic of Love: Why God became Jesus.” A human virgin birth is not something we have observed scientifically. However, given the occurrence of virgin births in lower species, we would have to classify it as an anomaly, not an impossibility.
In other words, although science regularly deals in what usually or almost always happens, something that rarely happens or that we have never observed happening isn’t necessarily impossible or a violation of God’s laws. Just extremely unusual, and in some cases unique.
Meanwhile, God creating a rock so heavy that God cannot lift it is internally contradictory, such that it is an impossibility. Like the other omnipotence paradoxes, it is not something that is simply extremely rare, and therefore an anomaly, or something that we’ve never observed, such that we’re skeptical that it can happen or exist. Rather, it is something that is impossible because it is self-contradictory.
Why can’t sickness and disease just be a consequence of sin?
Let’s suppose I never sinned. Just hypothetically. Then it wouldn’t be fair that I should get injured or sick.
Genesis 1:31 says that everything that God made was “very good.” But predators, sickness, and disease does not sound “very good.”
It would be fair for me to get sick or hurt IF I have sinned, which of course I have. And since I have sinned, it is just and fair for me to get sick or hurt. Otherwise, nothing bad should happen to me.
If I never sinned, I would be invincible to suffering and pain.
Jesus never sinned, yet he suffered. However, he was a special case. He only suffered to be the propitiation for our sins. To save us from our sins, he had to have no sin of his own.
Hi World Questioner,
Jesus suffered because it was an inevitable part of the battles he fought to free us from the power of the Devil, meaning hell. It doesn’t really have anything to do with “propitiation” as that is usually understood. See:
How did Swedenborg interpret 1 John 2:2: “He is the propitiation for our sins”?
You can’t go out to battle without getting hurt. Pain and suffering are an inevitable part of war.
We, too, must also endure suffering as an inevitable part of our process of being born again.
The fact is that we all have sinned and gone astray, just as the Scripture says. Beyond that, we all start out in life rather self-centered and greedy. And the only way we can be motivated to re-evaluate our motives and change them to love of God and love of the neighbor is to experience the pain and suffering that results from people (not only ourselves) acting out of selfishness and materialism. This is what teaches us—all too often the hard way—that if we wish to be happy, and happy to eternity, we must give up our selfishness and greed, and live from love for God and the neighbor instead.
Sickness and disease are part of the suffering that we endure as we learn these lessons. When we get sick, we start thinking about our life, what it means, and what is important to us. We also start thinking about how we can live more healthfully, both physically and mentally/spiritually, so that we won’t get sick so much.
Even if a sickness doesn’t result from our own evil or sin, it can still teach us lessons about what is most valuable in life. Many people skate along the surface of life as long as they are young and healthy, living a hedonistic and self-indulgent life. If they remained healthy and strong decade after decade, they would have no reason to do anything else. But when their physical health begins to fail, whether as a result of their own unhealthful lifestyle or as a result of outside influences, or a mixture of both, they have to stop and think about what is important in life.
So yes, the idea that if we had never sinned we would never get sick is purely theoretical, since we all have sinned. But beyond that, sickness serves a purpose in our process of spiritual rebirth, and we do get sick from time to time even if we are doing everything right.
Overpopulation wouldn’t be a problem if there were infinite resources. Couldn’t God provide infinite resources? If God made the Earth bigger, he could just weaken the strength of the gravitational force. Not the Earth’s gravity in particular, but the gravitational force as a whole. Alternatively, God could just relocate the excess population to other planets of an infinite number, or even to other universes or dimensions of an infinite number.
Or people could just go to Heaven without dying. The physical body would just be morphed into a spiritual body, so it would no longer be physical. Or instead of a slow death or sudden death of the physical body, the physical body could just vanish/fade into nothing while alive and the spiritual body would appear in the spiritual world.
Enoch’s life was cut short, but not by death. He walked so closely with God that God just finally took him. Only two people are known to have ever achieved it. The other was Elijah. Only one person in like every three thousand years ever achieves it.
God is the government that created the laws of physics. Just because something is physically impossible doesn’t mean it’s logically impossible.
Hi World Questioner,
No created thing is infinite. Only God is infinite. Everything created is finite. In fact the way God created the universe was specifically to put limits on infinite (unlimited) substances that God sent out (see True Christianity #33). So created things are finite by creation and by definition.
In general, I tend to think that God is competent to create a universe that best serves God’s purposes. We could speculate on how God could have done it better this way or that way, but that’s based on our very limited human perspective on things.
Ditto when it comes to death. Death may seem unpleasant, but this life is not designed to be unpleasant. It is designed to challenge us to be reborn from selfish people to loving people. A pleasant life would not accomplish that. Even death would not be unpleasant for most people if we lived according to God’s plan, and died peacefully in old age.
Instead of creating resources, God could just continually create resources, so that they would grow with the population. So that no matter how much the population grows, God could sustain an unlimited population. Create matter and energy out of nothing.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if the laws of physics allowed matter and energy could be created from nothing, but that once it’s created it cannot be destroyed?
God didn’t create people selfish. No one was ever created selfish. They were created to not be inclined to either selfishness or love. They had to either grow to selfish or grow to be loving.
Roddenberry says that God created faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes, but in reality God never makes humans faulty.
Hi World Questioner,
Once again, the only thing in the universe that’s infinite is God. And it is not possible to create something from nothing. This earth does quite well for the job it was designed for, which is to be a seedbed for heaven.
And no, God didn’t create people selfish. That was a result of the Fall. We are selfish, not because of God, but because we decided to do things our own way rather than God’s way. That’s the story of the Fall.
I meant “instead of creating infinite resources, God could just continually create resources forever…”
Hi World Questioner,
Isn’t that what the earth already does for us?
But the Earth can only sustain a limited population, and matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.
And the Universe is finite and no matter or energy will be added to it.
Hi World Questioner,
I think, the earth, and the universe, are already big enough to do the job God created them for. No need to keep on adding more.
Plus, if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have their way, the humans on this earth will not be limited to this earth and its resources much longer.
Only God can increase the number of resources (including matter and energy) in the Universe. Only God can create resources or add them to the Universe.
Hi World Questioner,
There are already plenty of resources available. Once we start mining asteroids, there will be a practically unlimited supply of all the minerals we now mine very destructively here on earth. And even on earth, we are always discovering new deposits. Clickbait titles and prophets of doom and gloom to the contrary notwithstanding, we have come nowhere near exhausting earth’s resources. And we haven’t even started using nearby off-earth resources.
God gave us plenty. It’s up to us to use it wisely and well.
What I mean is, if overpopulation results that resources cannot support, God can just create more resources and add them to the world/universe.
Hi World Questioner,
And what I’m saying is that God has already provided us with more resources that we can possibly use in any reasonable amount of time. Even as we develop more energy-intensive technology, new sources of energy come within our reach. Futurists talk about technological societies that use all of the energy of their sun. I doubt we’ll ever get anywhere near that level of energy usage. The energy of the sun comes as close to being infinite as any physical and therefore finite energy source is going to get.
Speaking of which, it is the basic nature of created reality to be finite, not infinite. That is what distinguishes it from God. For God to continually create new energy and resources would be to go against the flow of the very nature of physical reality, which is a finite reality.
Looking at it from the other side, then, our job is not to yearn for infinite resources, but to learn to live with the level of resources that we currently have access to.
Is creation ex nihilo Biblical?
Hi World Questioner,
No. The Bible doesn’t say anything about God creating the universe from nothing.
Let’s suppose I never sinned in eternity. Just hypothetically. Would I still suffer from natural disasters? I think not. If I was sinless, just hypothetically, I should be completely unaffected by natural disasters or any troubles.
Hi World Questioner,
Only if all people who ever existed, exist now, and will ever exist in the future were never to sin to eternity would there be no natural disasters, and no need for them. See:
How can we have Faith when So Many Bad Things happen to So Many Good People? Part 2
Practically speaking, Christians do have one example of a person who lived without sinning: Jesus Christ. And even he experienced natural disasters such as famines and storms. So the answer to your question is yes, you would still suffer from natural disasters.
Natural disasters are not individualistic. They affect whole groups and nations of people. Even if there were one sinless person among them, that person will still experience the same natural disasters as everyone else.
A corollary of this is that when bad things happen to us, it does not necessarily mean that we ourselves are evil or sinned to cause those things to happen. This is a common error. It is especially common among people who believe in karma and reincarnation. But Jesus rejected this idea:
Only because he had to atone for our sins. Whatever “propitiation for our sins” and “ransom for many” mean. Only because he had to battle the Devil. We do not atone for anyone else’s sin – only Jesus. Lambs were only a temporary atonement, while Jesus was a long-lasting atonement, right?
Hi World Questioner,
Once again, atonement does not mean what Western Christianity thinks it does. It is not a matter of propitiating God in the usual sense of that word. See:
How did Swedenborg interpret 1 John 2:2: “He is the propitiation for our sins”?
Jesus’ battling the Devil was an integral part of the atonement—one that is largely sidelined in Western Christian atonement theory.
Consider someone who has been kidnapped, and is beginning to succumb to Stockholm syndrome. The only way to save that person from adopting the evil views and actions of the kidnappers is to rescue him or her to get him or her away from their influence.
This is what Jesus did. He defeated the Devil’s power over us, rescuing us from the spiritual Stockholm syndrome of our becoming evil ourselves because we have been kidnapped by the Devil.
In Old Testament sacrificial worship, lambs were an ongoing sacrifice for people’s ongoing sins. But the lambs themselves did not take away sins, as Paul said. It was the willingness of the people offering the lambs to repent and turn to God that took away sins.
Jesus became the only needed sacrifice forever because once we turn to Jesus, he is an ongoing, eternal source of love, guidance, and power to move us to repent from our sins and live a new life of love for God and the neighbor. It is no longer necessary for Christians to sacrifice lambs, because we have a direct relationship with the source of all spiritual life.
If there weren’t any sins for Jesus to atone for, Jesus would not have suffered. If there were no sinners to be a ransom for, then Jesus would not have had to suffer a painful death. Jesus might not have even been physically born?
Hi World Questioner,
And if God had not created humanity in the first place, none of it would be necessary!
But that’s not the reality of the situation. In reality, God did create humans, humans did sin, and Jesus did have to be physically born, suffer, and die as part of what he did to save us. “Atonement” really means bring us back into harmony with God. It does not mean the reverse. We’re the ones out of harmony with God, not the other way around.
If only some had sinned, and not all, would there still be a plan for salvation? Or would the some that had sinned be put to death, since “the wages of sin is death”?
I’m just talking hypothetically.
Hi World Questioner,
Even if only one sinned, there would still be a plan for salvation:
But doesn’t the plan for salvation depend on a common sin nature lineage with the sinners? A continuous sin lineage? Isn’t that why Jesus had to be born of a woman who is just one of many sinners?